My December
by Addictions
Summary: When everyone leaves Shigure's house, what will happen when he is left alone for almost a year? (rated for thoughts of suicide cussing)


DISCLAIMER: Fruits Basket and all related characters, ideas, ect. are trademarks of Television Tokyo MediaNet Co., Ltd. and FUNimation in the United States and other countries. I in no way helped create the series or in any way am part of any of these companies. This fanfiction is only created for my love for this series and for the enjoyment of other fans to read. I neither own the song 'My December' for it and all of its components belong to Linkin Park.  
  
My December By Addictions  
  
'This is my December  
  
This is my time of the year  
  
This is my December  
  
This is all so clear'  
  
Shigure stood outside of his house. A thin layer of snow from the previous night remained on the ground, the treetops, and the roof of the house. He just stood outside, not bothering to wear a coat in the chilling weather, just staring into the vast nothingness as the cold quickly overcame his form from the tip of his head, to the soles of his feet. His breath was slow and strained, from both the cold that threatened to freeze him from the inside out, and from the pain he felt from being at his house.  
  
Though it wasn't the house that pained him, it was the truth that he was alone. He didn't want to have to face the thought of being truly alone, especially not near Christmas. He always seemed to be left alone for Christmas, for New Years he had his whole family plus a select few others, but Christmas; he had himself and that was all. That was how it had been since he was in elementary school. His mother would leave him home alone on Christmas Eves' morning, and then return the day after Christmas. He never knew his father, and he was an only child, so he would stay by himself in the house and just stare at the door, waiting for her return.  
  
But that's when the next memory of his long forgotten childhood returned, freshly revived, into his mind. He remembered sitting in the cold house just watching the door, hoping that it would soon be thrown open and signalling his mothers' arrival. When the door slowly creaked open he jumped up from his seat, but was not greeted by the kind face of his mother, but by the stern and ruthless face of Kado, who was the head of the Sohma Family. He walked in and closed the door behind him as to keep the snow, which continued to fall from the sky, and the wind, that was blowing the snow in each direction, out of the house. His frail form ventured into the house, but kept its coat and boots of, letting the snow on then melt from the hardwood floor. Shigure, whom was only six years old at the time, looked up to the older male.  
  
"Shigure, your mother is not coming home tonight. I have to bring you to stay somewhere." Kado said to the young boy and then added as an afterthought, "Get your coat and shoes on."  
  
Shigure didn't move from his standing spot and just looked at Kado, wondering why his mother was not going to come home, but he decided not to ask just yet, and then walked over to the closet to go and get his jacket and shoes on. He slipped on his sandals and winter jacket. He would wear boots, but his mother had not gotten around to buying him any yet, so he was stuck wearing the sandals that he wore all the time when he left the house.  
  
When he finished Kado grabbed him by the hand and dragged the boy out of the door, not caring to shut the door on the way out, and Shigure didn't protest. If he did the consequences could be more then he wanted to think about at the moment, so he allowed himself to be dragged along for what seemed like house, but in truth was only about 20 minutes. By the time they got to the door of the house in which he would be staying in Kado handed him a piece of paper and explained to him to give the paper to the woman in the house and she would take care of him for a while. His limbs by this time were frozen, and his toes were numb, he wasn't sure if they were frostbitten or not. He was shivering horribly, and he shakily reached out one of his pale fingers and struggled to press the doorbell. He was awarded by a chiming noise from inside the house once he had successfully pressed the button, and moments later a middle-aged woman was standing at the door. She squinted slightly through the snow but then saw the form of a small boy. She gasped as she realized that it was Shigure, one of her best friends sons, and pulled him into the house.  
  
His nose got stuffed up and his body quaked once he was pulled into the house where a fireplace crackled in the corner and the scent of cinnamon filled the air, he couldn't smell the cinnamon, but he knew that it was in the air from the feel of the room. His body was red from the sudden change of temperature. Before he knew it he was being stripped of his jacket, sandals, and socks which were all soaked and was being bombarded with blankets and then led into the room and sat close to the fireplace. He could feel the feeling returning to his appendages and tears started to fall from his eyes from the pain that it gave him. Silently he sat there as he cried and his body shook with pain. That is when he remember the letter that Kado had given him. He looked over to the woman whose mouth was moving like she was saying something, and he could feel the vibrations of her voice in the air, but his ears could not pick up any noise. He shook his head slightly and handed her the letter that was tightly clenched in his hand and held it out to the woman who stopped talking and looked at him. She took the letter from her grasp and quickly scanned over the words in the letter and then gasped and covered her mouth as tears started to spill down her eyes and down her cheeks. He just watched her silently, and she then looked down, her hair curtaining her face and tears dropped to the floor. That is when his hearing decided to return, and he heard her mumbling 'I'm sorry' repetitively. He didn't know what she was apologizing for, but he had decided to ask.  
  
"What are you sorry for?" He asked, his voice cracking from the tears and coldness that his body was still under. She looked up quickly at him, her eyes red from crying. She wanted to pull him into an embrace at that point, to at least try to comfort him, but she knew that if she did he would transform. So she just continued to sit there and then wiped the tears from her eyes that continued to fall despite her attempts to stop.  
  
"Y-you mean; you don't know w-what happened to your mother?" She asked him, and a shake of his head was the only reply that she received. More tears started to fall from her eyes and she looked back down to the floor. "Shigure, your mother passed away when she was in a car crash because of the slippery roads tonight." She said barely audible to even herself, but Shigure had picked up every word and more tears spilled from his eyes to the ground.  
  
'This is my December  
  
This is my snow covered home  
  
This is my December  
  
This is me alone'  
  
That is where the memory ended. That was the day that his life had went from going downhill, to a sheer drop miles down. He never thought that he would be happy again after that, and it truth, he never was. After that night he had stayed up thinking and deciding to be strong by not letting anyone see how vulnerable he really was. So he put on a mask and acted like nothing bothered him and that he was always in a good mood. He acted as though the whole ordeal with his mother had never occurred and treated his new family with as much respect as he would anyone else. But what he didn't notice was that by acting as though none of that bothered him, he was actually victimizing himself in the process, and soon his little act was what his life revolved around.  
  
And that brought him to where he was now. He was deep in depression and had suicidal thoughts running through his head. Nothing in his life mattered anymore. He was just a shell of a human being. He had died day by day since the age of six and now his soul had been eaten away by victimizing himself. He would never be anything more then the shell of a human being and a memory from a past life. He was dead, but was not aware of it. He no longer had anything to live for. He lived alone in a house that always seemed to be cold and unwelcoming, more so since Tohru, Yuki, and Kyo had moved away, he had lost contact with all of his friends and hadn't spoken to anyone for almost a year. Not even Mit-chan, his editor, had bothered calling him. It truly made him feel alone, he didn't know why, but it did because he was alone.  
  
'And I  
  
Just wish that I didn't feel  
  
Like there was something I missed  
  
And I  
  
Take back all the things I said  
  
To make you feel like that'  
  
He took one look back to his house and then wandered inside. He wasn't going to be a coward any longer. He couldn't take life anymore, so there was no point in living any longer than he already had. He had attempted suicide multiple times before, but he had either thought up a reason, that didn't matter much to begin with, as to why not to kill himself or he didn't press the knife deep enough into his skin. But he had a fool-proof plan now so that even if he wanted to stop, he wouldn't be able to. He would poison himself.  
  
He made his way into the kitchen and took out a bottle, on the front of it, it read 'TOXIC: AVOCARDYL'. He then took out a glass from the cabinet and poured some alcohol from the refrigerator into it. He knew that alcohol could mask the poison, so suicide wouldn't be obvious. He poured some of the powder into the glass and then mixed it around. He then looked into the glass. This was to be how he would die. This drink would kill his body, so that it would match his soul, and he was ready. He was ready to be set free from this hell, and he was ready to go see his mother, he was ready to be forgotten, he was ready to have his body be found years later when someone walked in to check out the house, he was ready for death. He was staring death in the eye, and was ready to submit to it. He was ready.  
  
He raised the cup to his mouth and took a couple big sips and the put the empty glass into the sink. In about three hours he would be gone from this hell, and into the next, but he was ready. He sat down at the table and stared blankly across the room. Littering the table were pieces of paper and various writing utensils. He picked up a pen and a piece of paper and began writing:  
  
'To whoever finds my dead body,  
I know you probably could care less about what happened to me, so you don't have to get involved. My body could lie here for all of eternity for all that I care. I just knew that I was already dead in spirit. I hadn't talked to anyone in almost a year, the phone hasn't rang in forever, and I was just a waste of space, so I decided to stop being such a fucking coward and just end my life like I have been wanting to for years. Since Christmas when I was six years old to be exact. I don't even know why I am wasting my time writing this letter. Most likely they won't even read it, but if by chance they do, I hope they pass this on to whoever is wrote about in here.  
Where to start? Let's start with Yuki Sohma. If you are in his High School, yes I am talking about 'Prince Yuki Sohma'. I don't know what I could say right now that would not be awful, so Ill just say whatever comes to mind first. I fucking hate you Yuki. I brought you under my roof, away from Akito. Did I ask for anything? No. I asked for nothing from you except for the occasional favour. But then what do you do? You move away with my other two, yes TWO, people who lived with me, leaving me alone. Think of it this way, you know how if you have a dog, and when you leave them alone they do nothing but wait for someone to return or even just visit. Well, that is what I have been doing since everyone left me.  
Kyo, you can be second, because you were always second best compared to Yuki. You even knew that, that is why you two were constantly bitching at one and ruining my house, yes, MY house which I let you stay in and ended up paying for all the repairs after the Main house cut off the money flow for repairs. I can just see the look on your face now, a look between shock and disgust. Well, that is what I though of when you did some of the things you did, so don't be hypocritical about this situation.  
Tohru, I don't have much to say to you, because you didn't do much wrong except for going with the cat and the rat, leaving me here alone. Everyone says you always think of other people before yourself, but that isn't always true. Did you even think about how I would feel if everyone just left me here? Did you ever? I doubt you did, because we're in the same boat here. Both living a lie to please others. I can't wait until you just give up one day. I can't wait.'  
  
He continued writing what he though of all of the zodiac members and the others that he knew until he got to the last person he was to write about:  
  
'Hatori.I thought that you would be here for me.'  
  
He then signed the letter and went up to his room and changed his clothes and put on a pair of sandals. He had about one hour left, and he decided that he would just fall asleep and die then, he would then at least have one last dream before he died.  
  
'And I  
  
Just wish that I didn't feel  
  
Like there was something I missed  
  
And I  
  
Take back all the things I said to you'  
  
He headed back down the stairs and laid down on the couch and placed the not on top of it. He curled up with a blanket and slowly slipped into the peaceful state of unconsciousness, never to be awoken again.  
  
- * -  
  
Hatori walked out of his doctors' office at the Sohma main house and got into his car. He stuck the key into the ignition and turned it until the vehicle roared to life. He shifted it out of park and into reverse, backed up, put it into drive, and drove towards Shigure's house. He had tried to call him a couple of minutes ago and got no answer and he had to ask him if he knew Yuki's new address, so he decided to go pay him a visit in case he didn't hear the phone or something on that lines. But what he saw when he got there, he was not expecting.  
  
The house was a mess and it looked as if no one had been in there in years, but still he ventured in and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Shigure asleep on his couch. He walked over and shook the dog lightly, hoping that it would wake him up, and slowly Shigure's eyes fluttered open. He rubbed them and looked around. "Am I dead now?" He asked, but then noticed Hatori and his eyes widened. "What are you doing here?!" He asked him.  
  
"Why would you be dead Shigure?" He asked, ignoring the dogs' second question and just asking him his own question instead.  
  
Shigure wasn't dead. He looked over to the clock and smirked. Ten minutes and it would've been three hours. "Because I'm committing suicide. I already poisoned myself with avocardyl."  
  
Hitori's eyes widened. "Shigure? You're just joking, right?" He earned a shake of his head from Shigure. That's when total panic set in and Hatori raced out of the house to his car. Good thing he was a doctor, for he wouldn't know the only antidote for avocardyl if he wasn't. He grabbed a case out of his trunk and searched through it and took out a syringe and diabetes's medication. He filled the syringe with it and quickly rand back into the house where Shigure was laying back down with his eyes closed. He leaned over and injected him with the antidote and Shigure looked up at him, drowsiness settling in.  
  
"What the hell was that?" He said, speech slurred slightly, but before he could receive an answer, he was already passed out, back into the peaceful state of unconsciousness.  
  
- * -  
  
Shigure opened his eyes to see he was in a white room. The brightness hurt his eyes and he had to blink a couple of times to adjust his eyes. That's when he noticed that he knew where he was. He was in Hitori's Doctor's office. He sat up, knowing that somehow he wasn't dead. Hatori then walked in and looked over to Shigure with the letter that the dog had written earlier in his hand. "Why the hell did you do that Shigure? If by chance I hadn't come over to." He was cut off by Shigure.  
  
"If by chance." He mimicked the seahorse and then glared at him. "See, no one would purposely come to visit me. I mean, what's the point. When you leave a dog at home they just mope their waiting for company. So let's leave Shigure there, I'm sure he won't mind." He replied, growing angry for even mentioning anything to Hatori about the suicide. If he hadn't then he would be dead right now, he would be happy, truly happy.  
  
Hatori just sat their speechless for a moment. He hadn't expected that at all. "Shigure, what was so bad in your life that you wanted to kill yourself?" He just received a mumbled 'everything' for his answer. "Shigure, listen." He was then once again cut off.  
  
"No, I think it is time you listen Hatori! I was left alone in that house for almost a year. I didn't talk to anyone because once Kyo, Tohru, and Yuki left no one saw the point in coming over anymore. So I was left there and I did nothing except waiting for someone to come and visit."  
  
"You didn't have to stay there Shigure. It was your choice to stay." He said to the dog that was getting frustrated.  
  
"Oh yes! It was my fault, do you really think I even have anywhere else to go to? I can't come here because I left once already and Akito wouldn't allow it? So where else would I go? A motel? Yeah, because I can afford one of those."  
  
"Shigure."  
  
"Just get the hell away from me." Shigure replied, looking away from Hatori as tears blocked his vision. He let them silently fall down his cheeks. He was so confused, angry, sad, and so much more all mixed into one emotion at the same time. He didn't know what he could do anymore.  
  
'And I'd give it all away  
  
Just to have somewhere to go to  
  
Give it all away  
  
To have someone to come home to'  
  
"Shigure, what the hell is wrong with you? You're not acting yourself." Hatori said and sat across from the dog, just watching him.  
  
"Do you even know me Hatori? Do I even know me? I don't think either of I really know Shigure. I mean, I would make jokes, act happy, and be like a kid just to not let anyone know who I really am. I'm not like that at all Hatori, I never have been and never will be. That was just my play and I was just an actor in a foreign mask that no one can see the real me from under it, not even myself."  
  
"Shigure.."  
  
"Shut the hell up Hatori." He commented and then put a fake grin on his face and stood up. "So Hatori, have you seen Aya lately? How about those High School girls? Nice looking bunch this year, huh?" He then stopped his little charade and glared at Hatori. "That was just an act, my whole life has been an act for as long as I can remember."  
  
'This is my December These are my snow covered dreams This is me pretending This is all I need'  
  
Shigure sat back down and looked over to Hatori as soon as the dragon started to speak once again. "All this stuff written in the letter, is it true? Did you mean it all?"  
  
Shigure nodded. He did mean every word of it at the time, but now thinking back on it, he would take it back if he could. He missed his friends and was frustrated that they hadn't come to help him at the time, so that is why he had wrote all of those things, but he would never admit that aloud, he could barely even admit it to himself.  
  
"I don't think you did." Hatori said and scanned over the letter once again for about the twentieth time since he had brought Shigure here. He couldn't believe the things that he had said about all of them. He even had things to say about Kisa, Hiro, and Rin. He didn't see them very often and yet he still said some awful things about them. "I'm sorry."  
  
'And I Just wish that I didn't feel Like there was something I missed And I Take back all the things I said To make you feel like that'  
  
Shigure looked over to Hatori and narrowed his eyes after he wiped them on his sleeves. "What are you sorry for?"  
  
"For leaving you alone. I wasn't thinking. Seeing as you didn't visit, I thought you just wanted time to yourself." Hatori replied, looking away from Shigure as he said so, he didn't want to have to face the dog as he said that.  
  
Shigure looked to the ground for a moment. "Do you truly mean that Hatori? If you're lying then." It was his turn to be cut off by Hatori this time.  
  
"I promise Shigure, I promise."  
  
'And I Just wish that I didn't feel Like there was something I missed And I Take back all the things I said to you'  
  
Shigure squeezed his eyes together, trying to stop a new set of tears from falling from his eyes, but failing completely. The tears came anyways. He then felt a pair of arms wrap around his shoulders and he tucked his knees up to his chest.  
  
"I'm sorry." He said repetitively into Shigure's hair as he continued to embrace him. He didn't notice until then, how close he actually came to loosing his best friend that day. Then he felt the dog's arms wrap around his own waist and pulled him closer so he could cry on him.  
  
So they stood there for the longest time, Hatori trying to comfort his best friend, and Shigure trying to cry out all of his vulnerabilities and problems. Nothing disrupted them, and neither of them said a word to the other. They just enjoyed the time they had together, even though it was for the wrong reasons. And that is when Shigure then spoke. "You were right."  
  
Hatori shifted himself so that he could see Shigure's face as he looked up at him. "Right about what, Shigure?" He asked, not knowing why the dog had randomly brought up him being right about something all of the sudden.  
  
"I didn't mean any of those things I said in the letter."  
  
'And Id give it all away Just to have somewhere to go to Give it all away To have someone to come home to'  
  
Shigure shocked Hatori by saying that, but shocked himself even more than that. He could barely accept that fact himself, but he knew he had to say it, because it was true after all, and he knew Hatori was right that time.  
  
Hatori smiled and hugged Shigure closer to him. "I know. It's ok." He continued to hug his friend, glad to have helped comfort him, but still guilty for being one of the things that would've made him kill himself. "Shigure?"  
  
Shigure looked up at him and cocked his head to the side in a questioning manner. "What Hari?"  
  
"Would you like to spend Christmas with me, so you wouldn't have to be alone?" He asked him, knowing that he would be alone also this Christmas, and didn't want to leave the dog alone by himself for yet another Christmas.  
  
A genuine smile crossed the canine's features and he cuddled up to the dragon. "Thank you for inviting me. You're the first person who's even stayed Christmas with me."  
  
'This is my December This is my time of the year This is my December This is all so clear'  
  
Hatori let his friend go and straightened out his coat while Shigure got off of the bed and put his sandals back onto his feet. The pair walked out of the front door into the snow which was lightly falling from the sky. Shigure clung onto Hatori for warmth seeing as he didn't have a jacket or boots, and soon both of them arrived at Hitori's house.  
  
'And I give it all away Just to have somewhere to go to Give it all away To have someone to come home to'  
  
"Merry Christmas Shigure."  
  
"Merry Christmas Hatori."Hh  
  
Getan.  
  
Ending Note: This is just an early Christmas Fanfic that I was going to put up last year, but never got around to doing so, so I just revised it and edited it. I know that it is sort of long, so I hope you took the time to read through the whole thing, because it's not as fulfilling if you don't. And I was also thinking of maybe writing a sequel to it if any of you want one. I was thinking more shonen-ai Hatori/Shigure fanfic, but I could go in a totally different direction if you wanted me too. Well, I hope you liked it, and remember to review! 


End file.
